TRAM MARVEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 284, 21 February 1928, Page 1

TRAM MARVEL

Amazed Samoan MODERN WONDERS VISIT TO AUCKLAND Thirty-five years ago Saagi, a handsome young Samoan chieftain, visited Auckland with a missionary party. So impressed was he with the Queen City that he determined to come again. T ONG years passed, however, before Saagi, now a pastor in the service of the London Missionary Society, was able to realise his ambition. Sofe, his wife, presented the pastor with two fine sons, and the boys had to be educated. In order to do this they were sent to St. Stephen’s College, at Auckland. And so the years passed. Yet Saagi and Sofe kept their tour steadily in view until their sons were grown to manhood. One entered the pastorate, and the other the Samoan Government service.

Saagi’s noble profile was commented upon as he gazed yesterday from the deck of the Tofua, where he was wcl corned by his friend. Miss Jean Begg, of the Y.W.C.A., at Auckland, who had taught at a neighbouring Samoan school. Saagi himself is still a senior tutor at the Malua Theological Col- ■ lege, a position he has retained for ! over 25 years. j One of their first visits in Auckland will be to St. Stephen’s College at j Parnell, where their boys received their schooling. Afterwards they will journey to Rotorua.

FASCINATING AUCKLAND The fingers of time have tapped insistently on the shoulders of Saagi since he was in New Zealand 35 years ago. Yet his carriage is erect, even if his once glossy locks are now silvered. The Samoan is still a magnificent specimen of the great Polynesian : people. Auckland, to Saagi, is still a woni der. Has he not told Sofe of the great city? | But to Sofe, apart from (he shops, ; her greatest thrill to date has been : the electric tramcars. Her first glimpse of a moving tram drew a gesi ture of amazement. She could not j believe her eyes. •

To-day Saagi and his good wife are sight-seeing—taking their fill of the many wonders that Auckland has to show them.